This invention relates to photography and more particularly, to novel photosensitive photographic elements, particularly novel photosensitive emulsions.
As a result of the known disadvantages of gelatin, in particular, its variable photographic properties and its fixed physical properties, for example, its diffusion characteristics, much effort has been expended in the past in order to replace gelatin with a suitable synthetic colloid binder for photographic silver halide emulsions. Many snythetic polymeric materials have heretofore been suggested as peptizers for silver halide emulsions, however, these have generally not functioned satisfactorily and frequently have not fulfilled all of the basic requirements for a photosensitive silver halide emulsion binder listed following:
(1) absent (or constant) photographic activity; PA1 (2) ability to form an adsorption layer on microcrystals of silver halide permitting stable suspensions to be obtained; PA1 (3) ability to form adsorption layers as described in (2) above which do not prevent growth of silver halide microcrystals during physical ripening; and PA1 (4) solubility in water solution.
In addition, hithertofore, much emphasis has been placed on the ability of the synthetic polymeric material to mix with gelatin, as this property has been critical for employment in partial substitution reactions with gelatin. Consequently, many synthetic polymers of the prior art have been materials which allow for the growth of silver halide crystals only in the presence of gelatin.
Certain bis-aminimide compounds have been described in the photograhic art as being useful anti-static agents when included in light-sensitive silver halide photograhic materials. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,887. These compounds, however, are readily distinguished over the polymeric aminimide compounds of the present invention. Copending application Ser. No. 537,123, filed in the name of Kolesinski et al on Dec. 30, 1974, discloses the use of polyvinyl aminimide compounds as the viscosity increasing component of a diffusion transfer porcessing composition. Silver halide emulsions employing such polyvinyl aminimide polymers as an emulsion binder, however, have hithertofore been unknown to the art.